Heal Thyself

But no man is an island. One needs a community to survive.

Still, it never hurts to know how to take care of yourself.

Mickey was a child who suffered a secret trauma that he wouldn’t even let himself know about and remember. It was a strongly repressed memory. And it made Mickey hurt himself constantly… on purpose. He burned himself on his lower back and the back of his legs purposely to tamp down thoughts about sex and sexual urges. He refused to be seen naked by non-family members. Except that, starting in fifth grade, he had to take showers with other boys after PE classes. And he was even afraid to go into a school bathroom during class because he might be caught in there alone by a bigger and older boy… while alone and defenseless.

The coach noticed athletic skills in Mickey during PE class and talked him into going out for football in the ninth grade. This Mickey did. He learned how to hit and be hit and survive with minimal injuries. He learned how to tackle, to take and give blows. He developed some power and skill at physical confrontation. He only ever got into two fights. The one where Danny knocked him off his bike from behind, he lost, because that was before the trauma and before football. But when stupid, angry Dickie attacked him after freshman year, he won that fight, throwing Dickie to the ground without hurting him about three times. Dickie gave up from embarrassment more than injury.

So, how does a Mickey heal himself when he won’t even admit to himself what the matter really was?

Well, being physically fit doesn’t hurt. But you can’t solve every problem by throwing it to the ground. And hating yourself and hurting yourself does not go away by throwing yourself on the ground. Mickey knows this because he tried.

You have to learn to talk to real people. And it didn’t hurt that Mickey practiced a lot by talking to imaginary people. There was a faun. There was an imaginary girlfriend from Canada who communicated in dreams and by psychic messages delivered through telepathy.

But there came an incident in PE class that might’ve resulted in a Mickey meltdown. The boys were supposed to be watching a wrestling demonstration, gathered around the champion lightweight wrestler and a hapless sacrificial opponent in the center of the circle on the wrestling mat. The girls were sitting in the bleachers listening to the girls coach talk about girls’ stuff.

You know what happened. A bully, one of many in the boys’ class, sneaked up behind Mickey, grabbed the legs of Mickey’s gym shorts, and pulled them down. It revealed all. And girls were watching. Mickey should’ve died right there and then. But he didn’t. He smiled at the girls who were giggling, gave them a little wave, and only then did he pull the shorts back on.

The coach caught the perp. And the bully was far more embarrassed than his victim.

That is when Mickey learned that humor is good medicine.

And facts are also good for healing terrible ills. Truly, the sex education Mickey got from the Methodist minister helped save his life. And later in college he learned more about sex and battling depression and overcoming trauma that helped him solve the problems of self hatred, self harm, and guilt. And what his friend told him over the phone that Saturday when he was actually contemplating suicide, that his friend thought Mickey was a good person, not bad… That was a fact that allowed Mickey to be here now writing these words.

So, the truth is, there are things you can do to help yourself even if your illness is depression, self hatred, suicidal ideation, or PTSD.

Humor helps.

Talking about it with someone who cares helps more.

Eat something chocolate.

Eating healthy for an extended period of time helps even more.

Get a good night’s sleep without sleeping too much.

Remember that LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL and you deserve to live it. Nobody has the right to take that away from you.

If Mickey can do it… anybody can.